Tag Archives: catalog

25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #13: The polar bear who ate Steven Spielberg

You may recall the post featuring Steven Spielberg (shared on December 4th). I later discovered that the UK Winter 2000 Shop-at-Home catalog had a similar holiday cover illustration…but with slightly different artwork.

The UK catalog replaces Steven Spielberg and his crewman for a football (soccer) player and polar bear. Given the popularity of football in the UK, the design change makes sense. As for the polar bear, I smell a conspiracy involving a Spielberg snack.

The UK catalog image (top) comes from BrickLink’s image library, as I do not personally own this variation myself.

25 Days of Holiday “Trainvertising” #11: Dinosaurs, Elephants and Bears…Oh My!

Today’s piece of advertising comes from the front cover of a 1998 preschool Shop-at-Home catalog. It features a Duplo steam engine pulling a load of classic ’90s Duplo animals, including a bear, giraffe, elephants and even a dinosaur! Due to the target market, this is not an easy catalog to track down and does not even appear in BrickLink’s catalog. Sadly, someone took some “artistic license” with the cover, drawing dashes through the title lettering, sketching over some bits of snow and drawings spots on the cat (to match the dog, of course).

The cover art for this is truly unique and fun to look at.